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Google won’t bail out the newspaper, but the Observer defends “menschy” Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger. Nat Hentoff is still enraged in general, but not bitter about being “excessed” from the Voice. And, alas, even gamers are feeling the print pinch. Just another day in the media world!
Photo: AP
We loved reading the Times coverage of Governor Paterson's State of the State speech. He's so inspirational sometimes. (And they didn't even include the jokes!) In his historic speech (the first ever where two of the infamous Albany "three men in a room" have been black), he cited Woodrow Wilson, Mario Cuomo, Edward Roland Sills, Paul Krugman, Eliot Spitzer, Saint Augustine, and even Sarah Palin. He spoke of hard times ahead, deficits, and shared sacrifice. He talked about crime, green energy, and the state's tradition of "unparalleled personal freedoms." At various points, the speech was met with sustained applause.
Of course, we still don't know what deal the three renegade Democratic state senators forged with new Majority Leader Malcolm Smith. Expect the soaring rhetoric to come crashing back down to business as usual, oh, tomorrow morning.
Paterson Warns of ‘Historic Economic Challenge’ [City Room/NYT]
The results of the Electoral College — which aren’t really all that important, other than in determining the next leader of the Free World — are scheduled to be certified by Congress on Thursday. But Representative Cliff Stearns has better things to do — namely, watch football. See, the BCS title game between Florida and Oklahoma is Thursday night, so Stearns, a Florida Republican, sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking to delay the vote "to allow Members to attend this historic game." (Barack Obama’s election isn’t historic enough for him, we guess.) Stearns is the only one to sign the letter, and Pelosi’s office said she won’t agree to the request. But Obama’s such a sports fan that we’d imagine he’d be less upset by the delay than by the fact that it’s for the very game he despises so much. [AP via Sporting Blog]
Photo: Getty Images
It’s been a pretty good week for Caroline Kennedy’s non-campaign campaign — and she certainly needs it. True, one poll showed a drastic drop in her popularity with voters, but that same polling company had shown her with an enormous, equally dubious lead one month earlier, and she’s still in a race that will be decided by a single, inscrutable voter. Kennedy’s chances of being picked to replace Hillary Clinton as the state’s junior senator have improved for two reasons.
When Chuck Todd was named NBC's chief White House correspondent a few weeks ago, we lamented that he wouldn't be helming Meet the Press, but predicted that he'd quickly confound and rattle President Obama with his brilliant, challenging questions. And today, when Todd was called upon for the first time by Obama, we were proven utterly correct, as Obama was instantly reduced to the stature of a feeble-minded child. But we weren't the only ones awestruck by his performance. Chris Matthews sounded like a proud father as he praised Todd on the air. "I was very impressed, Chuck," Matthews said. "His use of your name and his familiarity with you as a person was very strong there." And a couple of minutes later, also like a father, Matthews embarrassed Todd in front of all his friends. "Okay, chief White House correspondent for NBC News, Chuck Todd, who just lost his virginity, I think it's fair to say." Chuck, sport that he is, laughed it all off ... for now.
We’ve spent the last four years of our lives cursing the Patrick McMullan Company Website. We love Patrick and the boys dearly, but entire mountain ranges could have formed in the time it took that motherchucker to load. Imagine, then, our elation when we came back from the holidays to discover that the famed nightlife photog has completely revamped his Website, making it faster and shockingly more efficient. (Kristian Laliberte, Devorah Rose, and Olivia Palermo must be thrilled!) But for the nostalgic among you, fear not: The site’s long-standing reputation for misspelling names and misidentifying famous people remains intact. In the set of photos for Monday’s Bride Wars premiere, Brian Greenberg is listed as “Brian Green,” Tovah Feldshuh as “Tova,” and SNL’s Casey Wilson as “Who Am I?” Aw. We love you guys.
Patrick McMullan, New and Improved! [Official site]
The older, quite obviously less romantic way to get married at City Hall. No kiosks or anything!Photo: Getty Images
Perhaps sensing the economic downturn (and having eventually watched the Sex and the City movie), the city spruced up its civil-wedding chambers and moved them to 141 Worth Street. “New York City is already a legendary location to tie the knot, but this new location will give customers an even better, smoother experience that is more enjoyable and more memorable,” said First Deputy Mayor Patricia E. Harris in a statement. Here's what people can look forward to now:
The new 24,000 square foot ground-level space, significantly larger than the current space, features a new line-management system that tells customers their wait time; fourteen computer kiosks for online application processing; one-stop windows for service instead of multiple windows; credit card processing (replacing the need for money orders) ... other sundries such as disposable cameras, film, costume rings, and NYC merchandise ... Customers can also speak to clerks in their preferred language using a telephone interpretation system available in 170 languages. The design and construction of the project cost $12.3 million.
In other words, it's an airport. Which makes us wonder, actually, why there isn't a wedding chapel in the new JetBlue terminal at JFK. Nuptial bliss would go great with yoga and tapas!
Related: Four Designers Create Plans for the New City Wedding Bureau [NYM]
Unlicensed plumber, author of a poorly selling memoir, potential country singer, and now war correspondent — is there anything Joe the Plumber, né Samuel Wurzelbacher, can't do? The Renaissance man, known for his exhaustive knowledge of the Middle East, is headed to Israel for ten days to report on the Gaza conflict for conservative Web outlet PJTV.com. Mr. Plumber says he'll be gathering the stories of "Average Joes," or, as they're known over there, "Average Yosefs." [Fox News]
Will Leitch’s dispatches from recent visits to the Giants locker room will run every day this week leading up to Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Today: Tom Coughlin, gruff — and goofy.
Yesterday, Giants coach Tom Coughlin was asked about his team’s loss to the Eagles last month, a failure many pinned on the team’s unpreparedness to deal with Brian Westbrook, Philadelphia's nettlesome running back. (He has caused the Giants considerable pain over the last few years.) Was the loss due to the Giants not being ready? The relatively slow Antonio Pierce covering Westbrook? Or the versatile Westbrook's simply overwhelming everyone?
Coughlin was not playing this game. "I'm not putting the blame on anybody," he told reporters. "I'm just telling you it has to stop." In New York, we’re obsessed with blame. If the Giants lose, it's not because the Eagles were better, or the breaks just didn't go our way. We do not simply lose — someone has to be at fault. Coughlin once thought like this, getting caught up in various piddly battles with his players, most notably exiled tight end Jeremy Shockey. Today, he makes no such mistakes.
As Governor Paterson continues to mull his Senate appointment, things seem to be getting worse and worse for Caroline Kennedy. Surprisingly, it seems New Yorkers have been left unimpressed by the haphazard, Palin-esque Kennedy rollout and now prefer Attorney General Andrew Cuomo 54 percent to 34 percent, according to a new poll. A month ago, Kennedy bested Cuomo by twenty points. If math isn't your forte, that's a Titanic-level tanking we're dealing with here. A separate poll shows that Americans as a whole, who have probably been paying only marginal attention to the entire process, support Kennedy more than New Yorkers do. Unless Kennedy can turn public sentiment around, Paterson could decide that appointing her will neither secure that seat for the Democrats in 2010 nor help himself in his own reelection bid. Which means she better have some mind-blowing answers up her sleeve for that questionnaire.
Earlier: Caroline Kennedy Making Opponents (Yes, They Exist!) Feel Small
File this under not–very–juicy–but–important–to–Red Hook: City planners have revised their future vision of the waterfront there. American Stevedoring will stay after all, joined by a docking facility for harbor-operated boats, a cultural institution, and a green space. Brooklyn Brewery won't be going there after all, but a major beer distributor, primarily of Heineken, will. Adjoining waterfront beer garden, please? This item needs some sexy. [Brooklyn Eagle]
Long Island lawyer Steven Klig thought he had all the moves: Even though he'd broken up with his ex-girlfriend, he still thought he could squeeze some fun out of her by blackmailing her into e-mailing him dirty pictures. He threatened to spread videos of the two of them having sex (tapes he didn't actually have) if she wouldn't supply some new sexy images, according to the Post. The girlfriend, however, thought maybe the police would have more fun playing that ol' game than she would, so she got an investigator to get in touch and pretend to be his victim. (You know, like To Catch a Predator except for with a blackmailer instead of a perv. Sometimes it's easier just to outsource this stuff.) Klig then politely requested the following photos: "(1) fully clothed; (2) without [her] shirt; (3) without [her] shirt and pants (in just a bra and panties); (4) without the bra and (5) fully nude." That was enough to get him busted, scorch his name publicly, and get him suspended from his law firm.
But that's not the only way a little simple nudity foiled a criminal in this week's news. 
Photo: Photo-illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Getty Images
When we have a big lunch "date" on our calendars, we get pretty excited — not only does it mean we'll get to leave our computers for an extended period of time, but there's also the possibility that, depending on how cool our dining partner is, we might return to the office with an almost-imperceptible buzz. Liquid or not, we just associate lunches with happiness. Alas, we doubt things were quite so happy at the White House today, where, for the first time since 1981, all living presidents — Bushes I and II, Clinton, Carter, and the new guy — gathered for a midday meal. Though the lunch was held in private, Daily Intel was inexplicably allowed to attend the first few minutes and record the conversation.
According to the Times, this season "indicates that MTV is at least more interested in maintaining a veneer of authenticity than most of what its demon seed has wrought. Compared with something like 'Momma’s Boys' on NBC, 'The Real World' seems as if it had been incubated at PBS." Um, high praise? [NYT]
He's only happy when it rains/He's only happy when it's complicated...
When Rod Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to the Senate last week, Senate Democrats made it clear that they wouldn't allow him into the club. Nothing personal against Burris, who, considering Chicago politics, is pretty much as clean as you can get, but they considered any Blagojevich appointee to be tainted. What they underestimated is how little stomach they had for the spectacle that Blago and Burris were willing to orchestrate. Never mind the press conference announcing the move. After yesterday's scene outside the Senate building — in which a kindly, old, and, as Bobby Rush unsubtly pointed out, African-American man was barred from the Senate building in the rain — Senate Democrats have given in. The AP is reporting that Burris will soon be allowed to take office as the junior senator from Illinois. Even if it doesn't end up helping his legal case, Blagojevich must be proud today that even as the least popular pol in America, with no political capital whatsoever, he has made the Senate blink.
Report: Burris Will Get Obama Senate Seat [CBS News]
Recovering alcoholic Elaine Stritch turned heads Tuesday night when she made a stop at the bar at a Caron Treatment Center–sponsored party celebrating Christopher Kennedy Lawford's new book, Moments of Clarity: Voices from the Front Lines of Addiction and Recovery. But all the grande dame of comedy, draped in a spotted fur coat and big-lens sunglasses, picked up was a toothpick and a bottle of O'Douls (which she smuggled out with her when she left). On her way to the car, she told us about attending the opening night of pal Liza Minnelli's Broadway show, Liza's at the Palace, last month. She said the show was "terrific," so we asked her (admittedly wickedly) who would win in a sing-off between the two divas. "Who do I think would win? Me. Are you kidding me? But if I didn't think I would win, I shouldn't get up in the morning," Stritch cracked. "But in any other competition, I wish her the best of luck." She's still got it!
And to think the death of this love could get in the way of a needy child's trip to Egypt.
Peter Cook says his ex-wife, Christie Brinkley, withheld the passport that their 13-year-old son, Jack, needed for a Ross School jaunt to Egypt. Christie, let's hope it's not true you're in such a power play over your kids that you would deny them that kind of very basic field trip that all kids in America usually enjoy. Bernard Madoff was at the U.S. courthouse the other day when a security guard cracked about someone's left-behind penny: "Bernie will take it." Those guards have a lot of time to stand there and think up witticisms! Ex–Lehman head Dick Fuld and his wife, Kathy, had to be shown by their driver how to use the JetBlue self-check-in kiosk at Palm Beach airport en route to New York. Eli Manning's wife gave him a special lap dance at Tenjune for his 28th birthday. So? If more people got lap dances from their spouses, there'd be less trouble in the world, and probably less hunger, too.
Seymour Hersh is going to be pissed that Observer columnist Simon Doonan, reporting from Florida, scooped him on this earth-shattering news: "To say that Bernie Madoff has performed a rectal electrocution on Palm Beach would not be an exaggeration." Whoa. And we thought he just violated them financially. [NYO]
Obama meeting with his economic advisers yesterday.Photo: Getty Images
Ever since America saw the movie Dave, we've been wondering about the massive inefficiencies that must exist in the nation's budget every year. Come on, you know what we're talking about. Every time the government raises your taxes, a part of you wonders, "Do we really need to spend billions on making people feel good about cars they already own?" Anyway, Obama is clearly aware of that feeling, since he coupled his warning yesterday that America was going to face unprecedented trillion-dollar deficits over the next few years with some soothing news: He's hiring Nancy Killefer, a management and efficiency consultant from McKinsey, as the country's "Chief Performance Officer." If you were new to America, you might think someone with that title would also be known as "President." But if you're a businessperson, you know all too well that often it takes somebody brought in from the outside to really tell you the rough news about how you're wasting resources and energy.
If we had the job of "Chief Performance Officer," we'd take charge of everybody's performances. Starting with Michelle Obama's! All tours of the White House would have to be led by saying, "And we're walking, and we're walking ... And we're stopping."
Sonja Kohn, the feisty redheaded 60-year-old behind Austria's Bank Medici, scored around $2 billion for Bernie Madoff in Europe. Now, she's reportedly so terrified of the Russian oligarchs whose cash she lost that she's gone into hiding.
Kohn's an interesting lady. According to the Times and the FT, she was born in Vienna and lived in Switzerland and Milan. She came to New York in the eighties, where she converted to Orthodox Judaism, founded and headed Eurovaleur, a small brokerage firm, and made the acquaintance of one Bernard Madoff, whose scam she's been flogging all over Europe ever since.
Joseph Percoco, an aide to Andrew Cuomo, has been quietly telling upstate and labor leaders to give Caroline Kennedy a "cold reception." Though Cuomo has said he was staying out of the "race" to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate, Percoco's been telling people things like ‘"I can’t say he wants you to tell people he wants it, but you should, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know that he kind of wants it.” Ugh, high school Albany. [NYT]
"Page Six" today tells us about Josh Brolin's vulgar tirade against New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley from the New York Critics Circle Dinner Monday night. Brolin called Brantley, who gave him a poor review in Broadway's True West, a "motherfucker." "Page Six" talked to Brantley, who drolly replied that Brolin "sure knows how to tap into angry characters." But neither the actor nor the critic shared the best part of the story, which is that Brolin took his hatred to an awesome, juvenile level. "I was onstage," he told us alone at the party, "and I had somebody take a picture of me with my pants down and my ass out for Ben Brantley." (He also told us that Sean Penn "just makes [him] want to be gay.")
We have two thoughts about this. One, Josh Brolin is just as awesome as we want him to be. Two, if we got a picture of his bubble butt sent to us from him personally, we would take it as a huge compliment.
For more celebrity nudity, click through our Party Lines slideshow.
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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Screening
Celebrity Charades 2009
A Single Man Premiere
The Lovely Bones Screening
Museum of the Moving Image Salutes Clint
IFP Gotham Awards
Ten Years That Changed Everything
A Generation of Overparenting
The Sports Rivalry of the Decade
What Is the Point of the United States Senate? 
